For applications on a current mobile terminal such as a smart phone or a tablet, especially some applications related to mobile Internet including instant messaging (IM), electronic mail (Email), social networking services (SNS) and the like, the mobile terminal needs to communicate with an application server on a network side in real time. In the prior art, when an application program runs in a background of the mobile terminal, heartbeat signaling is sent at a small time interval between the mobile terminal and the application server, so as to ensure that the application server constantly refreshes Internet Protocol (IP) address information of the mobile terminal, and to utilize this mechanism to maintain long-term effectiveness of an IP connection between the mobile terminal and the application server, and moreover, to instantly establish an IP connection when there is no IP connection between the mobile terminal and the server. The application server sends relevant service data of the application program to the mobile terminal through the IP connection.
However, when the application program runs in the background, the mobile terminal needs to send the heartbeat signaling to the application server all the time to maintain a heartbeat connection, which leads to a huge waste of signaling.